The link between colonization and immigration for France began during the first part
of the fifteenth century, when she (la France) was practicing the "mission civilisatrice"
(similar to the english version of the "White Man's Burden") in order to implant
french culture, language, and religion. With this transfer of ideas and the adoption of
french culture, the children of children of the originaly colonized people have the ability
to go to France, where their imposed beliefs originated. These people, the descendants of
former colonized persons, feel as if they are of two cultures, and that their second culture
(that of France) can give more oportunities for success. Thus, France has millions of
immigrants qho came from former colonies.

During the fifteenth century, rapid European industrial development made the search
for new sources of raw materials and new markets essential, so France created a vast
colonial empire. In 1885 at the Conference of Berlin, France was given North Africa,
Madagascar, and Sub-Sarrahan Africa to colonize. The French had need of things their own
country could not provide, so they searched for these things in other places. For example,
in Africa, the French exported such things as ivory, gold and diamonds, animal furs,
coffee, and manpower in the form of slavery, because they did not have these things in
their homeland. In Indochina, France exploited natural resources such as rubber and
citrus fruits for benefiting their own economy.

In these countires, France imposed her culture with colonial education. Children of the
colonised people could not speak their mother language at school, and were thus forced to
learn French. Because of this situation, millions of people who were not from France spoke
French. Over the years, the colonized people learned the language, religion, and all things
French. They resembled the people of France in all aspects save the title.

More recently, after the decolonization process, former colonized people realized that they
could come to France to find a better life. The rate of unemployment in decolonized
countries is much higher, and in general, the ecomony is worse than that of France.
Because of this reality, people from French-speaking countries go to France to find work
in factories and other similar places, where they have the ability to make more money.
Because they already speak the language, it is easier for them to make a living.

In addition, in colonized countires, France is considered an elite place, where the
rich can live. In the opinion of many people from colonized countries, France is an almost
sacred place. In Maryse Condé's Family Portrait, she says that "For them (her
parents, who are from Guadeloupe), France was not only the seat of colonial power. It
was truly the mother land...". Because of colonial education and the opinions that these
schools give the colonized people, if the people have a chance to succeed in France, they
will go there.

Despite the fact that immigrants are not always well accepted in France (just as the French
were not always welcomed in colonized countries), they go there to find better jobs to earn
higher wages. They go to France for reasons that resemble those of colonizers hundreds of
years ago; formerly colonized people have need of things their homeland cannot give them,
and France is the best place to go in order to better one's life.